From Rodrigo Duterte to the Miami Dolphins: how Obama handles snubs

The president of the Philippines referred to the US leader as a ‘son of a whore’. Here’s how Obama deals with insults

“Certainly I would not appear to be beholden to anybody,” the Philippines president, Rodrigo Duterte, explained this week. And he needed to explain, because he had just floated the idea of calling President Obama putang ina, or “son of a whore”. No foreigner lectures Duterte about his domestic policy, you see, even if it is does involve extrajudicial drug-war killings.

Obama, who cancelled his meeting with Duterte in Laos because of the comment, does some snubbing of his own – as Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, and Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, will attest. But the US president is always the best target for any leader who wants to show that he (usually) will not be pushed around. Indeed, Duterte joins quite a catalogue of Obama-snubbers.